Medieval art, architecture and material culture by Vitrearum
This is a first in a series of brief articles on late medieval western liturgical dress and vestments. It is intended to provide a brief introduction to the terminology used to describe medieval vestments, for those who are unfamiliar with them. My intention is to provide a guide that will help fellow art historians describe... Continue Reading →
Rogier van der Weyden's Seven Sacraments is an extraordinary painting. In this post I explore the depictions of the Mass within and what it might say about the lay experience of the Eucharist in medieval Europe.
Today I am delighted to be able to share with you a guest post written by my colleague Dr Nicholas Groves, in which he discusses the evidence for the most persistent of Ecclesiological myths, that of the 'Devil's door'. Many medieval doors in churches are blocked up, some of the blocked doors are to the... Continue Reading →
Late medieval gospel lecterns are wonderful things and I have blogged about them and their purpose before. There are quite a number of 15th-century latten lecterns in Norfolk and Suffolk, but the example from Oxborough in Norfolk, dating from the 1480s, is particularly impressive. Not only is it a delightful object visually, with its eagle... Continue Reading →
Buckinghamshire is a wealthy and pleasant county in the south east of England, rather too pleasant for churches to be kept open. The day I visited Chearsley, only half of the churches I visited were open - which is not a very good record. Anyway it was a delight to get into this charming little... Continue Reading →
I had a trip into Berkshire a few months ago and to Childrey, where the church is a complex building of extraordinary interest, with lots of medieval glass and numerous late medieval monumental brasses. In the south transept, there is a fine early sixteenth-century monument of Purbeck marble which is built up against the north... Continue Reading →
Wellingham is a remote little hamlet in the middle of Norfolk to the south of Fakenham. It's church, heavily rebuilt in 1896 is rather undistinguished, but it contains a great treasure. The dado of a rood screen from the 1530s. Rather interestingly the screen is inscribed and precisely dated. The inscription on the upper... Continue Reading →
